Traditionally, there are two different philosophies used to design power boats. The first philosophy is to design the power boat with a planing hull, while the second is to design the power boat with a non-planing or displacement-type hull. Planing hulls use a significant amount of horsepower to lift a large part of the hull up on top of the water, thus reducing the wetted surface area and drag. Because of the reduction in wetted surface area, a planing type hull is typically capable of much higher speeds than a comparable non-planing hull. However, because a large portion of the hull is lifted out of the water, the boat tends to skip or bounce over the top of the waves, resulting in a rough, uncomfortable ride. Non-planing or displacement type hulls on the other hand do not lift out of the water, but instead tend to cut through the water. This results in a smoother ride, however, due to the larger wetted surface area and greater wave drag, displacement type hulls typically are not capable of attaining as high of speeds as planing type hulls.
The majority of prior art power boat designs use a single hull, however, a small minority use a double hull or catamaran design. Catamarans have two parallel hulls separated by a deck structure; this design greatly increases the stability of the resulting boat. Because catamarans have two hulls spaced apart, a catamaran is much less susceptible to water disturbances such as wave action. One disadvantage of prior art catamarans is that they tend to splash and spray water up over the top of the deck structure. This is not a problem if the user expects to get wet, such as in a number of sailing catamarans, but it is unacceptable in a powered pleasure craft.
In the past, most boat designs have been available in a limited range of choices. Buyers either had to sacrifice the excitement and enjoyment of having a high-performance power boat in order to obtain a smooth, pleasant ride, or sacrifice a pleasant ride and stability in order to obtain high performance.